πρᾶξις - PRAXIS
'To all those who have stood in midnight forests,
in temples, in subterranean chambers, and atop mountains,
invoking the Mysteries . . .'
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| Bereitschaft Arno Breker |
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| Aristotle |
There corresponded to these kinds of activity three types of knowledge: theoretical, to which the end goal was truth; poietical, to which the end goal was production; and practical, to which the end goal was action.
Aristotle further divided practical knowledge into ethics, economics and politics.
He also distinguished between eupraxia (good praxis) and dyspraxia (bad praxis, misfortune).
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| Communion |
Wisdom is always taste - in Latin the word for wisdom comes from the word for taste - so it's something to taste, not something to theorize about. "Taste and see that the powers are good," and that is wisdom: tasting life.
The mystical tradition is very much a Sophia tradition.
It is about tasting and trusting experience, rather thab institution or dogma.
THE WILL
'And the Will lieth therin, which dieth not.
Who knoweth the mysteries of the Will and its vigour ?
For God is but a great Will pervading all things by the nature of its intentness.
Man doth not yield himself to the Angels nor to Death uterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble Will !'
Joseph Glanvill - (1636–1680)
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| Arthur Schopenhauer |
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| Friedrich Nietzsche |
This is not the will as most people understand it, and as it is found in the writings of Freiderich Nietzsche (der Wille zur Macht).
The 'will to power' is a prominent concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
The will to power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in man: achievement, ambition, the striving to reach the highest possible position in life; these are all manifestations of the will to power.
Friedrich Nietzsche found early influence from Schopenhauer, whom he first discovered in 1865. Schopenhauer puts a central emphasis on will and in particular has a concept of the "will to live."
Writing a generation before Nietzsche, Schopenhauer explained that the universe and everything in it is driven by a primordial will to live, which results in all living creatures' desire to avoid death and procreate.
For Schopenhauer, this will is the most fundamental aspect of reality — more fundamental even than being.
(Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung)
THE TRUE WILL
The 'True Will' is the very essence of the occult understanding of the universe.
There is a part of man which is of a singular nature, although the mind is unable to perceive it as such.
Man considers himself a centre of will and a centre of perception.
Will and perception are not separate but only appear so to the mind.
The unity which appears to the mind to exert the twin functions of will and perception is called the True Will by magicians.
Sometimes it is called the spirit, or soul, or life force, instead.
The True Will cannot be experienced directly because it is the basis of consciousness (or experience), and it has no fixed qualities which the mind can latch on to.
The True Will is the consciousness, it is the elusive "I" which confers self-awareness but does not seem to consist of anything itself.
The True Will can sometimes be felt as ecstasy or inspiration, but it is deeply buried in the dualistic mind.
It is mostly trapped in the aimless wanderings of thought and in identification with experience and in that cluster of opinions about ourselves called ego.
Occut science is concerned with giving the the True Will more freedom and flexibility and with providing means by which it can manifest its occult power
The True Will is capable of occult power because it is a fragment of the great life force of the universe - the ONE.
Consider the world of apparent dualisms we inhabit.
The mind views a picture of this world in which everything is a duality.
A thing is said to exist and exert certain properties.
Being and Doing.
This calls for the concepts of cause and effect or causality.
Every phenomenon is seen to be caused by some previous thing, however this description cannot explain how everything exists in the first place or even how one thing finally causes another.
Obviously things have originated and do continue to make each other happen.
The "thing" responsible for the origin and continued action of events may called 'god' or 'the prime mover' - in reality it is the unfathomable ONE.
This power is also the force which adds increasing complexity to the universe by spawning structures which were not inherent in its component parts.
It is the force which has caused life to evolve itself out of dust, and is currently most clearly manifest in the human life force, or 'True Will', where it is the source of consciousness.
Occult will may exert its effects directly on the universe, or it may use symbols or sigils as intermediaries such as the runes .
From an occult point of view, it is axiomatic that we have created the world in which we exist. Looking about himself, the occultist can say "thus have I willed," or "thus do I perceive," or more accurately, "thus does my True Will manifest."
It may seen strange to have willed such limiting circumstances, but any form of dualistic manifestation or existence implies limits.
If the 'True Will' had willed a different set of limitations, it would have incarnated elsewhere.
The tendency of things to continue to exist, even when unobserved, is due to their having their being in the Universal Will - the ineffable ONE.
An occultist can only change something if he can have some limited effect on the Universal Will which is upholding the normal event.
This is the same as becoming one with the source of the event.
This is the same as becoming one with the source of the event.
His will becomes the will of the universe in some particular aspect.
It is for this reason that people who witness real occult happenings at close range are sometimes overcome with nausea, and may even die.
The part of their will or life force which was upholding the normal reality is forcibly altered when the abnormal occurs.
If this type of occult activity is attempted with a number of people working in perfect synchronization, it works much better.
Conversely, it is even more difficult to perform in front of many persons, all of whom are upholding the ordinary course of events.
In trying to develop the 'True Will', the most fatal pitfall is to confuse will with the chauvinism of the ego.
The 'True Will' is not willpower, virility, obstinancy, or hardness.
The 'True Will' is unity of desire.
True Will expresses itself best against no resistance when its action passes unnoticed.
The occultist therefore seeks unity of desire before he attempts to act.
Desires are re-arranged before an act, not during it. In all things he must live like this.
As reorganization of belief is the key to liberation, so is reorganization of desire the key to will.
In practice, many difficulties can be solved by using a powerful sigil or symbol.
The desire is represented by some pictorial glyph, or by some image in the mind's eye.
This serves as a focus for the will.
When considering any form of occult activity it is easier to manipulate events while they are still embryonic or at their inception.
Thus does the occultist turn that aspect of the universal will, which manifests as causality, to his advantage, rather than oppose it.
The desire then manifests as a convenient, but strange, coincidence, rather than as a startling discontinuity.
The 'True Will' may be strengthened by one other technique aside from the concentrations of magical trance, and that is by luck.
The occultist should observe the current of his luck in small, inconsequential matters, find the conditions for its success, and try to extend his luck in various small ways.
He who is doing his 'True Will' is assisted by the momentum of the universe.
The 'True Will' is but a small fragment of the great life force of the universe, which contains the twin impulses to immerse itself in duality and to escape from duality.
It will continuously reincarnate until the first impulse is exhausted.
The second impulse is the root of the mystic quest, the union of the liberated spirit with 'The One'.
To the extent that the the 'True Will' can become one with the 'Universal Will' it can extend its will and perception into the universe to accomplish magic.
It is unformed matter of a very tenuous, probabilistic nature.
It consists of all the possibilities which have not yet become solid realities.
It is the "medium" by which the "non-existent" will translates itself into "real" effects.
It forms a sort of backdrop out of which real events and real thoughts materialize.
Because aetheric events are only partially evolved into material existence, they do not have a precise location in space or time.
They do not have a precise mass or energy either, and at that point do not necessarily affect the physical plane.
From the aetheric realm of nascent possibility only what we call sensible, causal, probable, or normal events usually come into existence – yet, as we are centres of the 'True Will' ourselves, we can sometimes call very unlikely coincidences or unexpected events into existence by manipulating the aether.
Such is occult science
Even the physical sciences have begun to blunder into the aetheric with their discoveries of quantum indeterminacy and virtual processes in subatomic matter.
It is the aether, which surrounds the central core of the life force, with which the magician is concerned.
Its normal function is as a thought intermediary, yet its properties are so infinitely mutable that almost anything can be accomplished with it.
Thought gives it shape, and the 'True Will' gives it power.
Thus are will and perception extended into areas of time and space beyond the physical limitations of the material body.
The mastery of the 'True Will' - (wahren Willen) is primarily an achievement of the Aryan man, and it is only in the Aryan man that this faculty is preserved.
An admixture with the blood of the races of a 'lesser god' has weakened the faculty of the 'True Will' in all other racial groups other than that of the Aryans.
The mastery of the 'True Will' - (wahren Willen) is primarily an achievement of the Aryan man, and it is only in the Aryan man that this faculty is preserved.
An admixture with the blood of the races of a 'lesser god' has weakened the faculty of the 'True Will' in all other racial groups other than that of the Aryans.
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| Pentacle |
The beings which may be safely contacted are the Archons, Elementals and Daimons.
Such entities may be associated with talismans, places, animals, objects, persons, incense smoke, or may be mobile in the aether.
It is not the case that such entities are limited to obsessions and complexes in the human mind.
Although such beings customarily have their origin in the mind, they may also become attached to objects and places in the form of spirits, or "vibrations," or may exert action at a distance in the form of fetishes.
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| The True Will Hagal Rune |
Evocation may be further defined as the summoning of such partial beings to accomplish some purpose.
They may be used to cause change in oneself, change in others, or change in the universe.
The advantages of using a semi-independent being rather than trying to effect a transformation directly by the will are several: the entity will continue to fulfil its function independently until its life force dissipates.
Being sentient, it can adapt itself to a task in a way that a non-conscious simple magical action cannot.
During moments of the possession by certain entities an individual may be the recipient of inspirations, abilities, and knowledge not normally accessible to him.
Entities may be drawn from three sources — those which are discovered clairvoyantly, those whose characteristics are given in scriptures, and those which an individual may wish to liberate himself from his own psyche.
In all cases establishing a relationship with an entity follows a similar process of evocation.
Firstly the attributes of the entity, its type, scope, name, appearance and characteristics must be placed in the mind or made known to the mind.
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| Automatic Writing |
In the case of a created being the following procedure is used: the individual assembles the ingredients of a composite 'sigil' of the being's desired attributes.
A name and an image, and if desired, a characteristic number can also be selected for the elemental.
Secondly, the will and perception are focused as intently as possible (by some gnostic method) on the elemental's 'sigils' or characteristics, so that these take on a portion of the magician's life force, and begin autonomous existence.
This is customarily followed by some form of self-banishing, or even exorcism, to restore the individual's consciousness to normal before he recommences everyday activities.
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| Blood Sacrifice |
Blood sacrifice is most effective and most easily controlled by the use of one's own blood, which is customarily allowed to fall upon the 'sigil' or talisman.
However, the power to control blood sacrifice usually brings with it the wisdom to avoid it in favour of other methods.
Conjuration to visible appearances to prove to oneself, or others, the objective reality of entities is an ill-considered act.
The conditions necessary for its appearance will always allow the retention of the belief that such things are the result of hypnosis, hallucination or delusion, indeed they are an hallucination, for such beings do not normally have a physical appearance, and have to be persuaded to assume one.
Fasting, sleep, and sensory deprivation combined with drugs and clouds of incense smoke will usually provide an entity with sufficiently sensitive and malleable media in which to manifest an image if this is really required.
INVOCATION
The ultimate invocation, that of the ONE, cannot be performed.
The paradox is that as the ONE has no dualized qualities, there are no attributes by which to invoke it.
To give it one quality is merely to deny it another.
As an observant dualistic being once said: 'I am that I am not'.
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| Pantheon of Gods |
Many use the symbology of 'god-forms', for all mythology embodies a psychology.
A complete mythic pantheon can represent all of man's mental characteristics.
Individuals will often use a pantheon of gods as the basis for invoking some particular insight or ability, as these myths provide the most explicit and developed formulation of the particular idea's extant, however it is possible to use almost anything from the archetypes of the collective unconscious.
If the magician taps a deep enough level of power, these forms may manifest with sufficient force to convince the mind of the objective existence of the 'god'.
Yet the aim of invocation is temporary possession by the 'god' (care must be taken if this is to be achieved), communication from the 'god' (channelling), and manifestation of the 'god's' powers, - rather than the formation a religious cults.
The actual method of invocation may be described as a total immersion in the qualities pertaining to the desired 'god-form'.
One invokes these qualities in every conceivable way.
The individual first programs himself into identity with the 'god' by arranging all his experiences to coincide with its nature.
In the most elaborate form of ritual he may surround himself with the sounds, smells, colours instruments, memories, numbers, symbols, music, and poetry suggestive of the 'god' or entity. Secondly he unites his life force to the 'god-image' with which he has united his mind.
This is accomplished with techniques from the gnosis.
